Pass the Guampa By Nikki White | LATIN AMERICA
Families can be complicated. So can churches, and groups of churches. This seems to be true everywhere, including Latin America. “Trust does not come easily,” said Emerson Cardoso, Multiply’s Regional Team Leader for Latin America. “Churches with different religious structures are often reluctant to work together, and this impedes growth. Structure matters, but it does not create church growth. Doing the will of God does. And God’s will for the Church is that we be united in love.” What does love look like in this context?
“The Church must be a home for those who have no home, and a family for those who have no family to turn to.” In Latin America, poverty, corruption, and disease, including COVID-19, have created an ever-widening rift between the privileged and the impoverished. In years previous, as a pastor, Emerson led his church in running an orphanage, a drop-in center for at-risk teens, and a shelter for unwed mothers and others in need. He argued that a holistic presentation of the Gospel was key to uniting individuals from vastly different religious and socio-economic backgrounds. It was also the key to uniting vastly different churches, allowing them to serve together in reaching the world for Jesus. “The Church,” he stated emphatically, “must be a home for those who have no home, and a family for those who have no family to turn to.” 10 | witness
Emerson pointed to Uruguay as an example. In 2018, Basilio Schur, a mission worker associated with a denomination of churches in the United States, set out eagerly to plant churches in a remote village of northern Uruguay. However, he was denied funding because it was the policy of his sending organization to focus only on planting churches in communities of 5000 people or more. While understanding this decision, Basilio could not let go of the vision that he felt God had given him for the isolated rural communities of this country. It was then that the Uruguayan Mennonite Brethren conference stepped in and offered him the use of a church building that had closed its doors some years previous. Basilio began to realize that God was leading him to look beyond the parameters of his own church family to also embrace the extended family of another denomination, for the sake of the expansion of the kingdom of God. So, he accepted the offer from the MBs and began to partner with them. Within a few years, the church grew and planted other congregations, resulting in over seven hundred groups meeting in seventeen different locations throughout northern Uruguay. Basilio eventually connected twelve more churches that he had previously planted over the last twenty years into this network. As with any extended family, there were some uncomfortable moments around the table. “In the beginning, most of the MBs felt uneasy,” Emerson said. “There were some difficult and lengthy meetings over those six months, but we just kept passing the guampa around and drinking a lot of mate!” It took time for both groups to become familiar with each other and to overcome their cultural differences. But
